76% of Marketers Not Using Behavioral Data

In the new era of data gathering, when the exercise itself is a must for business, a surprising number of marketing managers choose to ignore the information at their fingertips.

A study by digital consultancy Razorfish showed that 76 percent of marketers fail to fully utilize the behavioral data available to them to target a customer group or engage in market segmentation.

According to Adweek’s Christopher Heine, in an item posted March 20, the Razorfish study revealed that the reason behind the high number of unconverted marketers is twofold: first, they tend to cling to more traditional, familiar methods; and second, as a group they have not been able to keep up with the explosion of data.

“[T]oday’s marketers continue to use the technology, processes and tools developed 20 years ago or more to drive consumer segmentation,” Razorfish CEO Pete Stein told Heine. “[And] there’s been exponential growth in the availability of behavioral data. There’s been a lot of talk and investment in the past few years on the importance of data and analytics, but many companies are struggling to translate this data, with technology and skills, into better data-led customer-facing experiences. We see this gap closing rapidly because of the proliferation of scalable data management platforms and advanced near-real-time segmentation technology.”

Sponsored by Adobe, the Razorfish survey of 685 C-suite executives found that 58 percent considered targeting experiences to segmented groups to be an area of strength; only 38 percent said they were confident in their ability to target prospective customers as opposed to returning clientele.

The disparity, Stein told Heine, “makes it clear there’s a disconnect between [audience] segmentation development and execution.”

Additional survey results did not bode well for expansive marketing to “always-on” customer. Only 13 percent said they were utilizing shared experience marketing and monitoring results, and a mere 5 percent pushed experiences for a market segment constantly connected to digital devices.

Stein also told Heine that the results suggest a poor return on investment among the vast majority of the brands surveyed, because they are going into their campaigns blind.

“Regardless of channel type, there is a huge difference between spending money on speaking to someone who is never going to buy your product or service versus investing in speaking to someone who is likely to convert or influence other converters,” Stein said. “But you can’t know the difference between these two audiences without data. Knowing who you are reaching and how they respond to different tactics helps optimize marketing spend.”